It's pretty rare to sit down to an interview and have the subject immediately lay everything out on the table—no prodding of any kind required. But that's exactly what happens when Chanel Iman welcomes me into the living room of her high-rise Manhattan apartment and, without further ado, says, "Let me tell you the whole story."

For those of you who have never opened a magazine before, here's a little background on Chanel. Her full name is Chanel Iman Robinson. Yes, she was named after that Chanel; no, not after that Iman (her cousin happens to share the name with the seventies supermodel). Chanel grew up in Los Angeles, signed with Ford Models at twelve, landed her first Vogue cover at sixteen, and now at eighteen is one of the youngest Victoria's Secret models in the company's history. She's appeared as a guest judge on America's Next Top Model, hosted by another former super (she calls Tyra Banks "my mentor"). She's assumed such a high profile that her name regularly pops up in gossip columns like "Page Six," which have romantically linked her to everyone from Kanye West to music producer Ryan Leslie. She claims both are "just friends." Her actual boyfriend, who hangs out on the sidelines during the interview, is, by her own account, "just a regular guy."

Chanel, on the other hand, is not just a regular model. A striking mix of African-American and Korean, she's one of the only models of color to break into the major leagues in a long, long time. Not since Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks, both of whom are now in their late 30s, has a black model garnered this much intrigue and attention. You would think in a day when America has elected its first black president, the notion of a black supermodel wouldn't be such an anomaly. But until Jourdan Dunn appeared on the scene a few years ago, Chanel didn't have much company at the top.

Nineteen-year-old Jourdan Dunn was discovered at a chain store in her native London by the same agency that lifted Kate Moss out of obscurity. She quickly established herself in the fashion elite with a history-making turn on the runway at Prada—the five-foot-ten Brit was the first black model to walk a Prada show in over a decade, the last one to do so having been Naomi Campbell in the nineties. "Everyone kept saying, 'Jourdan, you know how huge it is if you do this,'" she says. "Prada is notorious for cancelling girls last minute, so I was like, Okay, I'm confirmed, but I'm not going to get all excited until I'm actually on the runway. As I was lining up, I was still thinking, Any minute now they can come round and tell me, 'Jourdan, you're not doing the show.' So once I turned the corner and stepped onto the runway, I was like, Oh my God, I'm doing Prada!'"

Which brings us back to Chanel and the story she has to tell. "I could sit here and tell you, 'I love Jourdan! We've always been the best of friends!'" she says. "But we haven't. Until recently, we barely even spoke. We went from being superclose in the beginning," she says, "to dead silence if we saw each other backstage at a show." Not even a hello? "If we did say hi, it was hi, and that's it."

"It's competition," Jourdan says. "There aren't a lot of us, but instead of sticking together, we're pitted against each other. People will say things in Chanel's ear like, 'Jourdan is taking your spot,' and then they'll say to me, 'Don't trust Chanel.'"

A large part of the problem stems from the ridiculous idea that there's only room for one. Chanel says, "You're being told, 'So and so is only booking one black girl. It's either you or Jourdan,' So we'll be sitting in the lobby looking at each other like, 'Okay, I want this job, and she wants it too. Which one of us is going to get it?'"

"I remember last season," says Jourdan, "I was about to go into a casting, and my agent phoned and said, 'Turn back. They decided they don't want any black models.' I was like, 'They're actually telling you that's the reason? Are you serious?!'"

It's such a dated and appalling concept, it begs the question of what century some people are living in. "They did the same thing in my day," recalls Beverly Johnson, who in 1974 became the first black model to grace the cover of Vogue. "They tried to make us feel that there was only room for one of us and that we don't live in an abundant universe where there's enough for everyone. We're consumers too," she adds, pointedly. "We read magazines, and we should be able to open one and see ourselves in it."

"From my perspective, there aren't a lot of models of color being sent on go-sees," says designer Thakoon Panichgul, who nevertheless manages to cast his shows with a multicultural mix of girls. Jourdan closed his fall show. "I think it's about collectively saying, 'We have to make sure we show more diversity,'" he adds. "I'm conscious that I should be using Asian girls and black girls. But it's also just what's modern to me." Alexander Wang thinks it's about being color-blind. "For some designers, it's their 'thing' to make a statement with a black girl, but I just cast who I think is cool," he says.

The landscape is starting to change. Flip through a recent issue of Vogue and you'll find a Ralph Lauren ad featuring the Japanese model Tao Okamoto, a DKNY one with African-American Lyndsey Scott, and an ever-growing number of fashion stories starring models who reflect the diversity of the world we live in today. It was, in fact, a Vogue shoot that brought Chanel and Jourdan back together. "We said, 'Why are we fighting? It doesn't make any sense,'" says Jourdan. "The only way to improve the situation is to come together," adds Chanel.

When Jourdan, who's expecting a baby boy this December, learned she was pregnant, Chanel was one of the first people she confided in. "It was really hard," she admits of her unplanned pregnancy. "All I could think about was what my mom was going to say, my agency, my boyfriend. When I told my mom, she started crying and blaming herself. She got pregnant with me at the same age, and she said, 'I don't want you to have to go through what I did.'" It definitely won't be easy, but Jourdan is also in a unique position for someone her age. Not many nineteen-year-olds have CK Calvin Klein campaigns to fall back on.

"No babies for me until I'm in my 30s!" Chanel says. "I'm focused on my career right now. I can't even take care of my dog," she laughs, noting that her two-year-old pup Louis Dior still lives in L.A. with her mom. "She's always calling, saying 'I wish you would just bring that dog back to New York with you. But he can't come here," she says. "He'll mess up my apartment!"

Chanel is so driven and goal-oriented, you sometimes forget she's still a teenager, and, like any other girl her age, she blasts music in her bedroom and stocks up on junk food at Costco. (Yes, she eats!) The difference with Chanel is that the apartment is her own, and the car she pulls up to the grocery store in comes with a chauffeur.

Modeling is part of a bigger picture for Chanel. She sees herself as a brand. "I don't want to be known as the black model," she says. "I want to be recognized as Chanel Iman, a personality." She's in the midst of launching a Web site, chaneliman.com , which she says will be filled with everything from her must-haves to photos spanning her career. "I want to show people how I've improved. It takes time to be who you really want to be," she says. "It doesn't happen overnight." She's also expanding her fan base via Twitter. As of press time, she had 26,450 followers, and she's hoping to collect many more. Look her up—her Twitter name is It's Me Chanel Iman. Acting is on her radar too (as well as Jourdan's, for that matter), but so is becoming a Victoria's Secret Angel, getting a solo Vogue cover, and doing every campaign in the book. "I want all the contracts. Who doesn't?" she says. "Five years from now I see myself still working hard to get where I want to be, because I think big," she says. "I think the best. Maybe I think too large," she adds with a shrug, but her boyfriend Chris shoots the thought down. "You can never think too large," he says. "You're bigger than life, baby!"

On the way out of Chanel's apartment, she stops to show me a wall of framed pictures in her entryway. "It's every cover I've ever done," she says. Her first Teen Vogue cover is there, along with American Vogue. But in the center is one I've never seen before, a cover she did for Korean Vogue. "This one is really important to my mom," she says. "My mother was born in Korea, but they didn't accept her back then because she was mid with black. She was put up for adoption when she was a baby. Now," Chanel perks up, "her daughter is on the cover of Korean Vogue!"

Edited for teenvogue.com. For the complete story pick up the November 2009 issue of Teen Vogue, on newsstands October 13!